IGN India Recommends: Should you buy Nioh

Freed from this mortal coil.

By
Shunal Doke

Nioh has a storied development cycle, with development having been started all the way back in 2004. Since then, it has gone through what I can only imagine to be a considerable number of changes, least of all being the story, which was originally based off an abandoned script by Akira Kurosawa. After 13 long years, however, Nioh is finally out, and we’re all wondering about the same thing. Has Team Ninja done it? Is Nioh actually worth the money? Let’s find out.

Gameplay

To say that Nioh has a lot in common with Dark Souls would be a gigantic understatement. Tactical combat with a combination of quick attacks, heavy attacks, dodging, blocking and parrying. Does any of that sound familiar? Of course, saying that it’s little more than a Soulsborne clone would be doing Nioh a massive disservice. Sure, the gameplay and level design have a lot in common with the Souls franchise, but what sets Nioh apart from any of the FROM Software titles is the execution.

Along with a litany of attacks, Nioh also gives you a bunch of new moves you can learn as you progress through the game and level up. Each weapon has its own expansive skill tree where you can spend points to learn some awesome new abilities. Want to finish your combo off with a kick that quickly exhausts the enemy’s stamina? Go for it. How about a dual swords technique that basically makes you a flurry of death? All there. Along with all of these new abilities to learn, there are also separate skill trees for Ninjutsu and Onmyo abilities. The former lets you use poison coatings, shuriken and bombs, while the latter lets you use elemental coatings and status-inflicting bombs.

There’s also a big addition to the standard combat formula – the Ki Pulse. Using the Ki Pulse right not only lets you stay in a combat engagement for longer thanks to its faster regeneration of your stamina – dubbed Ki in Nioh – but it can also be used in conjunction with some of you Samurai skills to, for instance, get a damage boost if you switch stances or weapons in the same Ki Pulse. All of these stack layers on top of an already deep game. Sure, you can play it like a typical Souls games if you like, but learning and perfecting the Ki Pulse is going to make you much better at the game than you previously thought possible.

A big differentiating factor between Nioh and the Soulsborne games is the equipment. In Soulsborne titles, equipment gives you static boosts to your attack, defense, and maybe a couple of magical buffs here and there. Nioh, on the other hand, goes for a Diablo-esque approach with its loot. You’re going to find weapons and armour that, while looking the same as what you may have equipped, also give you bonuses to your other stats. These can be mundane like a simple boost to your strength to more powerful abilities that can only be acquired if you get the complete set of that particular piece of armour. Needless to say, Nioh has a lot going on, and the further along you go, the more things start opening up.

Story

The story is pretty simple, revolving around Japanese mythology, English pirates and the existence of Japanese demons known only as Yokai. The game kicks off with your escape from the Tower of London, has you landing on one of the shores of Japan, meeting up with awesome ninja Hattori Hanso, and things just get more insane from there. Nioh’s story has a lot going on, especially after the first few hours, so saying anything more will likely spoil a lot for you, so I’m going to leave the story segment at that.

Annoyances

Nioh doesn’t really have much in the way of annoyances. The only one that I can come up with is that the sheer number of gameplay mechanics layered on top of each other might start off feeling fairly cumbersome and daunting, but even that complaint disappears once you’ve spent a few hours with the game. The only other complaint I really have is that the controls – namely the turning – feels slightly clunky. However, this could have very well been intentional, especially with the amount of time you’re going to spend fighting on precarious narrow walkways where a single step could lead to your doom.

So, should you buy it?

Nioh is a bold game. It starts off like a typical Souls game, but quickly evolves into much more. In my twenty hours of playing the game, I felt shades of Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Diablo, and even Onimusha. There’s wealth of content in Nioh even after you finish the game, especially thanks to its Twilight missions and co-op. And if you want something more competitive in nature, Nioh’s also slated to get player versus player in an upcoming update. Nioh is a borderline perfect game, and if you like RPGs, I can safely say that Nioh definitely belongs in your games library.